Reception
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Set just post Sun of a Gun. Walter, Paige, and Ralph go out to eat, Paige figures out the balance question, and Walter reveals what he really thinks of her singing.


**Just a post ep for 2.14 "Sun of a Gun," when Walter, Paige, and Ralph all go out to eat.**

* * *

When his dinner plans didn't include anyone else, Walter had been planning to go to a food stand, but Paige suggested they find someplace to 'sit down and relax' and he'd have been lying if he'd said that didn't appeal to him.

The place they chose was somewhere Walter had been before; the burgers were just greasy enough for Megan to love them. He decided to order one; they weren't his favorite, but if his sister knew he'd been there and didn't eat one for her she would kick him in the place he had spent an earlier part of the day trying to keep covered up while in the sauna.

Ralph raised his eyebrows at the lack of nutrition in Walter's order, but he didn't say anything. Walter thought he caught a little smile on the boy's face, however, when one of the waiter's comments while passing out their plates implied that he thought the three of them were a family. Walter wanted the waiter to make the same mistake again. Something about the look on Ralph's face made his heart leap and he wanted to be able to study Paige's, too.

"Toby told me that you and Cabe tried to talk to girls last night," Ralph said, taking a spoonful of rice.

"Yeah," Walter said. "Wasn't a particularly successful endeavor all told. They didn't much care for my observations or intellectual challenges."

Ralph turned to Paige. "This is why I decided to stay in elementary school."

Paige ruffled his hair. "Intellectual challenges, huh?"

"It's enjoyable to engage one's brain. It helps keep you sharp, ready to think, something that in our line of work is essential to working at maximum capacity. Like think about this: you have eight balls."

He stopped, wondering what on earth he was doing. This doesn't work. Women don't like this. _They hated you_ , Toby had told him. Why was he presenting this problem to Paige?

She was looking at him with her eyebrows elevated, and he realized he'd chosen a very awkward point to back out of his brain teaser. He cleared his throat. "Eight balls. And you have a scale. And one ball weighs slightly more than the other seven. How do you figure out which ball with only two weighings?"

"Hmmm," Paige said, cocking her head to the side. "Okay, well you can start by putting four on each...oh, no." She stopped, thinking.

"No," Walter said encouragingly. "Go ahead."

"No, I'm wrong," she said. "I saw that look on your face." She held up a finger. "Don't speak. Let me think."

"Would you like a refill?" The waiter appeared at the table and pointed to Ralph's glass.

"Yes please," the boy said.

"Anyone else?"

"Three balls on each side," Paige said, her eyes lighting up.

"Excuse me?"

"What?" Paige looked at the waiter, startled. "Oh, uh, no, I'm doing just fine, thank you so much." She turned back to Walter. "Three balls on each side. Because then there's six on the scale and two not on the balance, right?" She waited for him to affirm before continuing. "So if the scale balances, then you know the six balls on the scale weigh the same. Which leaves you with the other two."

He grinned. "And?"

"And so for the second weighing, you put one of those on each side of the balance, and you can tell what one is heavier."

She grinned, proud of herself. Walter took a sip of his drink. "And what if on the first weighing, the scale doesn't balance? What if the heaviest ball is one of the six initially chosen?"

"Oh." Paige frowned.

"That would be the most likely outcome, of course, as the heavier ball has a seventy five percent chance of being selected as one of the six balls to be on the balance initially."

"Well," Paige said, "then you know that the three balls on the lighter side of the balance all weigh the same. So the heavier one is one of the three on the lower side."

"Right."

She pointed to his plate. "May I?"

Walter nodded, and she grabbed three of his fries. "Okay so..." she studied them. "Oh!" A big grin came over her face. Walter couldn't help but match it; her excitement was oddly contagious. "You put two balls on the balance, one on each side." She demonstrated, setting a fry on each side of her plate. This is your second weighing. If one side is heavier, then that ball is the heaviest. And if the sides come out equal..." she held up the remaining fry triumphantly, "then it's this one!"

"That's it!" Walter said, feeling oddly proud. He watched as Ralph offered his mother a high five, and as Paige then leaned over and kissed her son on the top of the head before popping the fry into her mouth. "That's...impressive," he said to her. "Not a lot of people get it right away if they hadn't heard it before."

She smiled at him, then cocked her head, raising her eyebrows again. "So anyway, going back to what we were talking about earlier..." Paige bit her lip playfully, "when you said I sounded nice..."

"Lovely," he blurted, immediately embarrassed for correcting her. But lovely was a good word, it described her voice perfectly and...he frowned, clearing his throat. "I...I said...lovely. But never mind, go on." He was glad the combination of the lighting and his skin tone hid his blush well.

"I asked you if that was a real compliment," she said, raising her eyebrows. "Tell me."

"And I asked you why it mattered." He held up a finger. "And if _you_ don't answer _me_ truthfully, why should I?"

She looked surprised at his response, but shrugged. "Fair enough." She pushed her plate to the side and leaned on the table, her arms folded. "I want to know because I like to sing. And I like when people say I have a nice voice. It makes me feel good. And you, you're someone I like a lot and I want to know if you were telling the truth."

"But isn't either option a good sign?" Walter asked. "Either I do love your voice, or I care enough about you to not want your feelings hurt? There are a lot of people who I don't care if their feelings are hurt."

"Yes," Paige said. "But sometimes a person really does want the truth."

"Well, the truth is," Walter said, pausing a moment to look at her before speaking again, "it's both."

She cocked her head. "What?"

Her voice was soft and quiet. Walter knew what that meant, he could hear Toby's voice so clearly it was almost as if the behaviorist was standing right there. _She likes what you're saying. She's receptive._

"What I mean is..." he bit his own lip. "I don't want to hurt your feelings. I, uh, I care about how I make you feel. But I don't have to worry about my opinion of your voice hurting them because...you really did sound lovely."

"Aw," she said, _her_ blush noticeable. She tipped her head, her eyes still locked on his. "Thank you, Walter."


End file.
